Behind the Susan Rice meeting meltdown

In just two quick meetings on Capitol Hill, Susan Rice may have blown up any goodwill she had with the very senators she’ll need for confirmation if she’s ever tapped as the next secretary of state.

Over the past two days, four key Republican senators have emerged from private meetings to blast the United Nations ambassador’s explanation about what happened during and after the deadly attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

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Collins: 'Troubled' by Rice

Obama calls Rice extraordinary

It’s not clear what Rice said behind closed doors to anger all these senators, but it’s obvious the meetings went badly and this was hardly a nominee-in-waiting charm offensive.

Even Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, just the type of moderate Republican who might help break a filibuster on a nomination, said there were still too many questions about why Rice incorrectly characterized the Sept. 11 assault in five Sunday talk show interviews as the result of spontaneous protests at the same time the Libyan president was calling it a terrorist attack.

“I don’t understand why she would not at least qualify her response to that question,” Collins told reporters after emerging from a 75-minute, closed-door meeting with Rice.

The Wednesday meeting in a secure briefing room in the Capitol basement came a day after a similar sit-down Rice had with three key voices on foreign policy and defense issues went terribly wrong. GOP Sens. John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, all members of the Armed Services Committee, said they were more “troubled” about the Benghazi affair than they had been before their meeting with Rice.

And Graham and Ayotte went so far as to say they would place a hold on her possible nomination.

“If she were nominated tomorrow, I would hold her because we still have questions that have not been answered,” Ayotte told POLITICO on Wednesday.

McCain, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee and Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential rival, hasn’t been as explicit. But one GOP senator told POLITICO Wednesday that McCain, Graham and Ayotte were so incensed after their powwow with Rice because they felt she was not being straight or candid with them about Benghazi.

Rice acknowledged this week that she had mistakenly described the attack as something spontaneous rather than premeditated. But she said neither she nor anyone else in the administration intended to mislead the public.

President Barack Obama defended Rice on Wednesday, just as he did at a news conference two weeks ago.

“Susan Rice is extraordinary,” Obama said at the start of his Cabinet meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at his side and Rice seated at the end of the table. “Couldn’t be prouder of the job she’s done.”

Both Clinton and Rice gave updates on tensions in the Middle East during the meeting.

Readers' Comments (296)

Rices' political role was to run cover for obama while he stole the election. His nomination of this woman is another in-your-face move by the man who swore and is set to swear again to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States.

Susan Collins lost me when she started with the same keywords that McCain, Ayotte, Lindsay muttered.

They are all useless POS who want the opportunity to get Scott Brown back in office - all of a sudden they all have a great love for Kerry and want him to replace Hillary Clinton. I hope if the Dems were to put up a dog he would beat Scott Brown. How the hell can Rice be held accountable for security in Benghazi?

The duplicitous duo seem afraid to go after Hillary who was directly responsible for the Benghazi mess - why are they giving her a pass?

Am I the only one who seems to remember the horribly wrong things Condi Rice said about mushroom clouds and WMD's and Sen. Graham, Sen. McCain and Sen. Collins didn't seem to have any kind of problem with her becoming Sec. of State. Now, suddenly, when it's a Democrat they have "concerns"? I think Tom Ricks hit the nail on the head. This is nothing more than political B.S. Certainly can't expect much else from the GOP. I think Hypocrite would be the appropriate term to use here.

Am I the only one who seems to remember the horribly wrong things Condi Rice said about mushroom clouds and WMD's and Sen. Graham, Sen. McCain and Sen. Collins didn't seem to have any kind of problem with her becoming Sec. of State. Now, suddenly, when it's a Democrat they have "concerns"? I think Tom Ricks hit the nail on the head. This is nothing more than political B.S. Certainly can't expect much else from the GOP. I think Hypocrite would be the appropriate term to use here.

collin's comments were particularly repulsive in that she practically blamed amb rice for the east african embassy bombings. but here's the problem she, mccain & graham have- they all voted to confirm condi rice for the same job AFTER it was clear condi rice repeatedly made false statements regarding iraqi WMD and repeatedly made statements she was asked specifically by the CIA not to. collin's may be climbing aboard the mccain conspiracy train with an eye towards her re-up run in 2014... yeah, good luck with that susie!

All the POS'es who voted for someone because of his skin color should be put on trial. They're racists and enemies of freedom considering the horrible tragedy that has befallen America since 4 years ago. To run the governent as a political arm harks back to Nixon.

Am I the only one who seems to remember the horribly wrong things Condi Rice said about mushroom clouds and WMD's and Sen. Graham, Sen. McCain and Sen. Collins didn't seem to have any kind of problem with her becoming Sec. of State. Now, suddenly, when it's a Democrat they have "concerns"? I think Tom Ricks hit the nail on the head. This is nothing more than political B.S. Certainly can't expect much else from the GOP. I think Hypocrite would be the appropriate term to use here.

Apprently you are. Why don't you remind us or you will prove that you are a liar. You may not remember but Colin Powell was the Secretary of State when we went to war with Iraq. It was Powell who briefed the UN. But the intelligence relied upon by Bush was also relied upon by Clinton and the rest of the world. Everyone believed Saddam had WMDs because that's what he wanted us all to believe. Even Clinton believed he had them. But of course, four 8 years we had to listen to Bush Lied people Died crap from the libs who now apparently want to defend Rice by saying that she just relied on the intelligence she was given - which the intelligence community denies.

So please, remind us of the "horribly wrong" things Condi Rice said. I dare you.

"they all voted to confirm condi rice for the same job AFTER it was clear condi rice repeatedly made false statements regarding iraqi WMD and repeatedly made statements she was asked specifically by the CIA not to."

Please provide proof for this statement otehrwise you are just another lying lib.

"In a January 10, 2003 interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Rice made headlines by stating regarding Iraqi WMD: "The problem here is that there will always be some uncertainty about how quickly he can acquire nuclear weapons. But we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."

After the invasion, when it became clear that Iraq did not have nuclear WMD capability, critics called Rice's claims a "hoax," "deception" and "demagogic scare tactic." "Either she missed or overlooked numerous warnings from intelligence agencies seeking to put caveats on claims about Iraq's nuclear weapons program, or she made public claims that she knew to be false," wrote Dana Milbank and Mike Allen in the Washington Post.

Rice characterized the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US as historical information. Rice indicated "It was information based on old reporting." Sean Wilentz of Salon magazine suggested that the PDB contained current information based on continuing investigations, including that Bin Laden wanted to "bring the fighting to America."

GOP wants to make a big deal about 4 lives on 9/11/12, but don't care to explore the 3,000 deaths of 9/11/01. How stupid do they think people are? This is the same party that voted to REDUCE embassy defense funds. Keep it up, the GOP will go the way of the Whigs in short order.

So we go on with this ridiculous partisan sideshow in which it already has been determined that the only scandalous crime Rice committed, was referencing the talking points given to her by the intelligence agencies, with no input form the White House whatsoever. I'm saddened that Collins decided to go along with this whole charade; she made an absurd comment when she accused Rice of playing a “political role” during the presidential election. It has already been clearly stated by Petraues and others that no political motivations were used in the talking points. Why did Rice refer to the Unclassified talking points instead of the classified talking points? .....Hmmmm let me take a stab at this one, I would gather it was because they were CLASSIFIED. Had she referred to them, and they had leaked out important confidential information, we would have had a real scandal. There is no there there, nothing, zilch, so have at it Republicans.

you can start with mushroom clouds over US cities which rthe CIA told her they had no evidence that iraq had anything capable of traveling that far. you can move on to the SOTU speech and the famous 16 words that wound up in it which the CIA aasked to be removed TWICE! condi rice now admits theyu shouldn't have been in the speech. move on to saddam training members of AQ- flatly denied by CIA.

For nine days, the Obama administration — including Susan Rice, our ambassador to the United Nations — refused even to describe what had happened at our Benghazi consulate as a terrorist attack. The White House and State Department insisted that Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods were killed in an “unplanned attack” during a protest prompted by the offensive video and that there “was no intelligence about any threat in Libya.” Of course, that narrative exonerates the administration from a failure to plan for radical Islamic “anniversary attacks” on Sept. 11.

Is this just the "way" the obama team handles things?

Is this what we expect from 'the worlds greatest president', and I'm just supposed to just "get over it"?

They want John Kerry to be Sec of State so that Massachusetts can have another special election so that Scott Brown can run again. Its pure politics. Thats why GOP "moderates" are trying their hardest to take out Rice.

The same Republicans bashing Rice over her statements based on intelligence all supported and defended the Bush Administration officials whose failures and mis-statements botched our response to 9/11 and led the country into war in Iraq. This is a sickening display of partisan scalp-hunting and everyone knows it. Just. Shameful. And while I don't think it's based on racism, the optics of a bunch of white political hacks attacking a black woman can't be good for the GOP.